Unlucky Black Holes
by andyjay18
Summary: Somewhat inspired by BHS' "Stars Above", here are the Witch forms of the ladies of LS to satisfy your morbid curiosity.
1. Chapter 1

**Betty**, the Volleyball Witch. Her nature is an inferiority complex. She resembles a huge volleyball continually trying to pass over a net which is always raising and lowering to block her and slam her into any unfortunate visitors to her barrier.

Her barrier resembles a combination of a gymnasium and a kitchen. Although the Witch's baked goods on the countertop look delicious, she currently seems solely focused on winning this volleyball game, even though sports are clearly not her forte.

Her Familiars are named **Charles **and **Julia.** Escapees from this Witch's barrier claim that they resemble various food-product mascots such as the Pillsbury Doughboy, Mrs. Butterworth, the Quaker Oats Quaker, the Jolly Green Giant, and the Hamburger Helper Helping Hand on various occasions, all of which are dressed in school gym-class outfits. Their duty is to serve the Witch ball over the net, but more often than not they are distracted by the pots boiling on the stove, and occasionally they add trapped humans to the dish. Fortunately this Witch and her Familiars are not very powerful, and several trapped people have been able to escape.

_This is Tsukasa's Witch form, as you might have guessed. "Betty" comes from Betty Crocker," Julia" from Julia Childs and "Charles" from Charles Alfred Pillsbury, founder of the eponymous company. Yes, it's questionable how Tsukasa would've known about the latter guy especially, but of course how did Sayaka know about the German poet Karl Siegmund von Seckendorff?_

_I have a soft spot for Tsukasa (and her VA, Kaori Fukuhara), so I wanted to write this one first. Would you like to see the rest?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Penny**, the Cosplay Witch. It is her nature to pose. She resembles Mikuru Asahina's outfits from the _Haruhi Suzumiya_ series. (Based on testimony of escapees from her barrier, she seems to change from time to time between Mikuru's school uniform, her maid costume, and her bunny-girl costume.) She dances the "Hare Hare Yukai" dance over and over, but is constantly worried about being found out as a poseur, literally just an empty suit. Thus many who blunder into her barrier will have their clothes and/or skin ripped from their bodies to cover her up.

She attacks with a series of red and white sunbeams fired from one arm, and red, white and blue stars fired from the other.

Her Familiars, **Holden** and **Wendee**, respectively resemble Kyon and Haruhi from the aforementioned anime. Their duties are to maintain the Witch's fantasies and keep her covered. However, they often laugh at her behind her back, convinced that this Witch is only making a fool of herself.

Her barrier at first resembles the bright lights and anime-related shops and billboards of Akihabara, but on closer inspection it is actually a series of flimsy movie-set facades constantly in danger of collapse. Puellae fighting this Witch should tread lightly.

_Here's Patty. Her Witch name comes from the Beatles' "Penny Lane"; "_And though she feels as if she's in a play, she is anyway."

_Holden was named after Holden Caulfield, he who was constantly on the lookout for corrupting "phonies". Wendee was named for Wendee Lee, Haruhi (and Konata's) English dub VA._


	3. Chapter 3

**Catherine**, the Doujinshi Witch, or the Deadline Witch. She has an urgent nature, always trying to get her latest project out as quickly as possible. Those who blunder into her barrier will find themselves on a rapidly moving treadmill of paper being sucked into her body, which resembles a large printing press. Thus they will have to run as fast as they can just to stay in place (and avoid "playing a role" in her latest production). Indeed, the walls of her barrier consist of a scrapbook of her human victims "preserved" within the pages of her doujins.

This Witch always fears running out of plot ideas; hence her Familiar **Bert**'s duty is to give her ideas. This he does by using his body (which resembles a computer cursor) to pierce into the heads of trapped humans and extract their thoughts.

Her other Familiar **Ernest** resembles a cupid with a pen in place of his head. His duty is to "ship" any two peoplehe comes across, especially if they're of the same gender. If any of them refuse to fall in love, he squirts them with his ink, sending them falling back into Catherine's maw.

_This is obviously Hiyori. I named her after Cathy Guisewhite (I hate that strip, but there aren't a whole lot of female household-name newspaper comic artists in the West, which is a shame. Maybe that's why "four-girl ensemble" manga are so popular)._

_Take a wild guess as for whom Bert and Ernest are named. ;) People have probably shipping their namesakes since the first generation of _Sesame Street _watchers became raunchy adolescents who crack up every time they hear the word "gay"._


	4. Chapter 4

**Gemma**, the Glass Witch. She has a fragile nature, as well as makeup. Her barrier resembles a hospital at the floor level, but with the stone masonry walls and flying-buttressed ceiling of a medieval European castle. The Witch herself is a stained-glass window with an image of a small, pink-haired girl in a princess costume (possibly an image of the Witch as a Magical Girl) embracing and kissing a tall, green-haired girl in a suit of armor. (Most _Puella _researchers believe the green-haired figure is a girl anyway; though her somewhat androgynous appearance causes others to differ.) However, she is riddled with cracks that continually fall out and crash into shards on the floor below.

The Witch's Familiar, **Florence**, resembles this green-haired girl. Some of them are dressed in suits of armor, some in late-medieval/early-Renaissance male suits, and some in nurse outfits. Their duty is to nurse their ill mistress back to health; unfortunately, they do this by draining victims' blood or simply sucking out their life energy, similar to Gertrud.

Fortunately this Witch is also rather weak. A well-placed projectile may be enough to permanently end her sickness with a coup de grace.

_This is Yutaka, as if you hadn't guessed. I named her after Saint Maria Gemma Galgani, the patron, umm, matron saint of pharmacists, as well as of students and the poor. (In another story I named "Poorfag's" Witch after her mother, Aurelia.) She was unfortunately quite the "Ill Girl", and died of tuberculosis at age 25. Florence was, of course, named after Florence Nightingale._

_I originally thought her barrier should be entirely like a hospital, but there's already a lot of Witch barriers with hospital imagery. Of course, given the Incubators' target criteria, that's probably not too surprising._

_I have to imagine Yutaka "Witched out" after watching Minami die or hearing about her death. Perhaps she felt responsible for it, similar to how she feels like a burden on others because of her vulnerability to illness. If anyone else wants to expand on that, be my guest. (Just say you got the idea from me.)_


	5. Chapter 5

**Zelda**, the Gamer Witch. She has a challenging nature, and is always looking for players to join the MMORPG that makes up her Barrier. It resembles a classic magic-infused quasi-medieval European setting a la _Lord of the Rings_ or _The Chronicles of Narnia_, and the "players" may be entranced by its well-rendered realism (and their assigned clothing and roles as mages, elves, dwarves, etc.) at first…until they realize they can't log out and are trapped in the game until they defeat the Witch, who resides at the top story of a huge, castle-like tower dominating the landscape.

The Witch is incredibly powerful (perhaps even rivaling Walpurgisnacht), and as such no one has actually seen her. (Descriptions of her barrier only come from _Puellae_ who were fortunate enough to escape.) Some have theorized that she may actually be the castle itself, or even the entire landscape of the game. Others have wondered if the Witch is actually in the other, smaller castle several weeks' journey away on the other side of her barrier.

Her Familiars are collectively named **Nolan **and **Gary**, and appropriately enough their duties are to serve as the "game's" antagonists, assuming the form of orcs, goblins, skeletons, liches and the like.

_Shigeru Miyamoto said the famous princess was in fact named for Zelda Fitzgerald. Given the nature of Witches (and Mrs. Fitzgerald's mental state), I thought it would be a good choice for Kuroi's form here._

_You can probably guess which recent anime inspired Kuroi's Witch form and barrier._

_Nolan Bushnell was the cofounder of Atari, and Gary Gygax was the creator of _Dungeons and Dragons.


	6. Chapter 6

**Gerda**, the Ice Witch. While she is a genuinely friendly, amiable being, her intimidating exterior leads most visitors to her barrier to believe that she is dangerous. (This is not helped by their tendency to freeze almost instantly when she tries to approach them.) Resembling a large thistle made of ice, she inhabits a completely flat plain covered in snow, buffeted by howling arctic winds.

When the Witch doesn't try to approach visitors, they will find themselves greeted by her minions **Edith **and **Roald**. Edith is a beautiful, stately woman with salmon hair and green eyes, clad in a whitish-blue winter kimono. She arrives in a sled driven by Roald, her large, faithful sled dog. Edith will then start serving a delectable feast of steaming hot tea and bowls of Turkish delight on a small table stowed inside her sled's storage compartment, all while engaging her guest in pleasant talk. Those who find themselves approached by these two are advised to avoid the temptation and walk away as quickly as possible. Just a sip of her tea will be enough to induce hypothermic effects, and no one has been known to survive to the bottom of the bowl of Turkish delight.

_This is Minami. Her Witch name comes from the female protagonist of Hans Christian Andersen's _The Snow Queen, _which is about the Devil turning himself into a mirror that only shows the bad in all beings and shuts out the good, thus making us look worse than we actually do._

_Edith's name (guess who her image was based on) comes from Edith Ronne, the first woman to explore Antarctica. Roald's name is from Roald Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole._

_The Turkish delight, of course, comes from the White Witch's temptation in _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. _Edith's actions were based on the Japanese legend of the Snow Woman (which was naturally alluded to and parodied in a lot of anime and manga)._


End file.
